Mark Twain: A Biography, by Albert Bigelow Paine

Chapter CXXIX

Further Affairs at the Farm

It was at Elmira, in July (1880), that the third little girl came — Jane Lampton, for her grandmother, but always
called Jean. She was a large, lovely baby, robust and happy. When she had been with them a little more than a month
Clemens, writing to Twichell, said:

DEAR OLD JOE — Concerning Jean Clemens, if anybody said he “didn’t see no pints about that frog that’s any better’n
any other frog,” I should think he was convicting himself of being a pretty poor sort of observer. She is the comeliest
and daintiest and perfectest little creature the continents and archipelagos have seen since the Bay and Susy were her
size. I will not go into details; it is not necessary; you will soon be in Hartford, where I have already hired a hall;
the admission fee will be but a trifle.

It is curious to note the change in the stock-quotations of the Affection Board brought about by throwing this new
security on the market. Four weeks ago the children still put Mama at the head of the list right along, where she had
always been. But now:

Jean Mama Motley |cats Fraulein | Papa

That is the way it stands now. Mama is become No. 2; I have dropped from No. 4, and am become No. 5. Some time ago
it used to be nip and tuck between me and the cats, but after the cats “developed” I didn’t stand any more show.

Been reading Daniel Webster’s Private Correspondence. Have read a hundred of his diffuse, conceited, “eloquent,”
bathotic (or bathostic) letters, written in that dim (no, vanished) past, when he was a student. And Lord! to think
that this boy, who is so real to me now, and so booming with fresh young blood and bountiful life, and sappy cynicisms
about girls, has since climbed the Alps of fame and stood against the sun one brief, tremendous moment with the world’s
eyes on him, and then —— fzt! where is he? Why, the only long thing, the only real thing about the whole shadowy
business, is the sense of the lagging dull and hoary lapse of time that has drifted by since then; a vast, empty level,
it seems, with a formless specter glimpsed fitfully through the smoke and mist that lie along its remote verge.

Well, we are all getting along here first-rate. Livy gains strength daily and sits up a deal; the baby is five weeks
old and —— But no more of this. Somebody may be reading this letter eighty years hence. And so, my friend (you pitying
snob, I mean, who are holding this yellow paper in your hand in 1960), save yourself the trouble of looking further. I
know how pathetically trivial our small concerns would seem to you, and I will not let your eye profane them. No, I
keep my news; you keep your compassion. Suffice it you to know, scoffer and ribald, that the little child is old and
blind now, and once more tooth less; and the rest of us are shadows these many, many years. Yes, and your time cometh!
MARK.

It is the ageless story. He too had written his youthful letters, and later had climbed the Alps of fame and was
still outlined against the sun. Happily, the little child was to evade that harsher penalty — the unwarranted
bitterness and affront of a lingering, palsied age.

Mrs. Clemens, in a letter somewhat later, set down a thought similar to his:

“We are all going so fast. Pretty soon we shall have been dead a hundred years.”

Clemens varied his work that summer, writing alternately on ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ and on the story about ‘Huck
Finn’, which he had begun four years earlier.

He read the latter over and found in it a new interest. It did not fascinate him, as did the story of the wandering
prince. He persevered only as the spirit moved him, piling up pages on both the tales.

He always took a boy’s pride in the number of pages he could complete at a sitting, and if the day had gone well he
would count them triumphantly, and, lighting a fresh cigar, would come tripping down the long stair that led to the
level of the farm-house, and, gathering his audience, would read to them the result of his industry; that is to say, he
proceeded with the story of the Prince. Apparently he had not yet acquired confidence or pride enough in poor Huck to
exhibit him, even to friends.

The reference (in the letter to Twichell) to the cats at the farm introduces one of the most important features of
that idyllic resort. There were always cats at the farm. Mark Twain himself dearly loved cats, and the children
inherited this passion. Susy once said:

The cats did not always remain the same, but some of the same ones remained a good while, and were there from season
to season, always welcomed and adored. They were commendable cats, with such names as Fraulein, Blatherskite, Sour
Mash, Stray Kit, Sin, and Satan, and when, as happened now and then, a vacancy occurred in the cat census there
followed deep sorrow and elaborate ceremonies.

Naturally, there would be stories about cats: impromptu bedtime stories, which began anywhere and ended nowhere, and
continued indefinitely through a land inhabited only by cats and dreams. One of these stories, as remembered and set
down later, began:

Once upon a time there was a noble, big cat whose christian name was Catasaqua, because she lived in that region;
but she didn’t have any surname, because she was a short-tailed cat, being a manx, and didn’t need one. It is very just
and becoming in a long-tailed cat to have a surname, but it would be very ostentatious, and even dishonorable, in a
manx. Well, Catasaqua had a beautiful family of cattings; and they were of different colors, to harmonize with their
characters. Cattaraugus, the eldest, was white, and he had high impulses and a pure heart; Catiline, the youngest, was
black, and he had a self-seeking nature, his motives were nearly always base, he was truculent and insincere. He was
vain and foolish, and often said that he would rather be what he was, and live like a bandit, yet have none above him,
than be a cat-o’-nine-tails and eat with the king.

And so on without end, for the audience was asleep presently and the end could wait.

There was less enthusiasm over dogs at Quarry Farm.

Mark Twain himself had no great love for the canine breed. To a woman who wrote, asking for his opinion on dogs, he
said, in part:

By what right has the dog come to be regarded as a “noble” animal? The more brutal and cruel and unjust you are to
him the more your fawning and adoring slave he becomes; whereas, if you shamefully misuse a cat once she will always
maintain a dignified reserve toward you afterward you can never get her full confidence again.

He was not harsh to dogs; occasionally he made friends with them. There was once at the farm a gentle hound, named
Bones, that for some reason even won his way into his affections. Bones was always a welcome companion, and when the
end of summer came, and Clemens, as was his habit, started down the drive ahead of the carriage, Bones, half-way to the
entrance, was waiting for him. Clemens stooped down, put his arms around him, and bade him an affectionate good-by. He
always recalled Bones tenderly, and mentioned him in letters to the farm.